Investing in gold is actually not a bad idea with a limited amount of your money, less than 5%, invested for the long haul.

A lot of people approach investing with a mindset like gamblers, hoping for a quick, big winner. It rarely works that way. Investing requires a long time and discipline to not sell out when markets are bad and to avoid chasing the latest hot investment. It's not timing the markets, it's time in the markets.

Another poster, Bam, mentioned William Bernstein, who wrote the preface to the Jonathan Clements investment book I mentioned a few months ago. He offers excellent, solid principles for investing.

Investing, like aging, is not for the faint-hearted. I lost almost 40% on my investments (read: Retirement Savings) during the Great Recession, and it is only now approaching the level it was at a few years ago.

A very good financial web site, with solid advice, is wwwDOTmorningstarDOTcom

TimG wrote:Bam, mentioned William Bernstein, who wrote the preface to the Jonathan Clements investment book I mentioned a few months ago. He offers excellent, solid principles for investing.

Loved Clements' articles back when he was with the WSJ. I gave up my subscription after he and Greg Ip left. Sad days for the WSJ.
Everything you said is spot on about investing. I use the Coffehouse Portfolio as my benchmark because it's a fully indexed buy and hold portfolio with very little effort involved. With a little more research you could squeeze out better returns, but piling in when the market dips, and taking profits when the market roars is tough.
I wouldn't even consider gold as an investment though. A safer option would be gold related stocks.
I bet you'd be much happier in the long run though if you took what you'd like to invest in gold and buy 50% each of VGPMX and VGENX.... a very nice inflation hedge.